Chelsea lose out to NFL hosts Arsenal

Premier League giants Arsenal and Chelsea have traded places in their roles as training ground hosts to the American Football teams preparing for their regular season game at Wembley.

Arsenal asked for too much money for the NFL to hire their London Colney headquarters last year, with the Miami Dolphins going to Wasps threadbare training centre in Acton instead, while Chelsea revelled in entertaining the New York Giants at their hi-tech Cobham base.

Chelsea, keen to build on their North American marketing links, were enthusiastic about San Diego Chargers using Cobham in the build-up to their match against the New Orleans Saints on October 26. But San Diego prefer the in-house training facilities at Pennyhill Park Hotel, which was Sir Clive Woodward's base of choice for his England rugby team.

The NFL, having baulked at the £25,000 cost last year, have accepted Arsenal's demands for three days' use of London Colney, which has 10 pitches and can cope with the gridiron requirements as well as Arsenal's training schedule that week.

NFL guests: Miami take on the New York Giants in last year's Wembley showdown

The NFL know that London Colney is handy for New Orleans' Grove hotel outside Watford - where England's football team stay - and did not want to revisit the Wasps facilities that are nowhere near up to NFL standards.

Boxing promoter Frank Warren is planning more legal action against publishers Random House on the day a statement was read out in open court detailing the £115,000 damages plus legal costs he received for the three libels in their book Ricky Hatton: The Hitman, My Story.

A revised edition still contains one of the allegations successfully contested by Warren that the boxer earned 'nowhere near £6million' while in Warren's Sports Network stable. The figures proving Hatton earned in excess of £6m gross in three years with Warren were sent to Random House in October 2006.

Out of the courtroom Warren is starting what will be one of his biggest tasks - resurrecting the career of Amir Khan.

ITV Sport, who have given Jim Rosenthal a new four-year deal to present boxing after telling him they were not renewing his contract, were concerned if he had won the legal battle brewing. It would have had serious consequences in the industry on the hiring and firing front as Rosenthal had 28 years service with ITV Sport.

Nancy Dell'Olio, the erstwhile partner of former England coach Sven Goran Eriksson, is still considered newsworthy enough by the BBC to be interviewed by Piers Morgan on the subject of fame on Monday week.

The programme was recorded before former FA executive director David Davies revealed in his newly-published book that Eriksson was 'unhappy' in his personal life with Nancy.

The Davies memoirs also detail how Premier League boss Richard Scudamore would have been appointed chief executive of the FA if David Sheepshanks had won his FA chairman election battle in 1999. Nine years on, Sheepshanks is interested in the position himself.

Wait for it, England

The England Twenty20 players looking forward to their cricketing windfall of $1million each if they emerge triumphant from the Stanford challenge match in Antigua, might have to wait for their winnings.

A spokesman for Allen Stanford said the plans and timetable for handing over the monies had yet to be decided.

Stanford will not be in the West Indies to oversee preparations for the week of cricket leading to the winner-takes-all game against England on November 2.

Instead, he will be speaking at a Global Sport Summit in London on October 24, sponsored by the NFL and The Economist. It is the sort of exposure he invested in cricket to win.

Jeremy Snape, the English performance director who will be part of the South Africa back-room team in Australia this winter, is wanted by the Aussies for next year's Ashes tour. Snape has received much credit for getting the Proteas' minds right for their Test series win in England last summer.